10,240 CPUs never looked this good.

A word of warning: It may be hard to walk back into your data center after viewing these pics. Still, I'm posting this in part because it's a breathtaking marriage of old-world architecture and modern technology. This is also one tremendous and inspiring example of reuse.

Instead of building a new facility, MareNostrum, Europe's most powerful supercomputer (94.21 teraflops peak, 9th largest in all the world) was assembled in the Torre Girona chapel in Barcelona, Spain. Naturally, some retrofitting was involved, but as Lloyd Alter at Treehugger mentions, it speaks to the adaptability of old structures.

Judging from the photos alone, the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, which manages the system, chose well indeed. It turns out they run guided visits, so vacationing geeks take note!

[via Treehugger, The Navel of Narcissus].